Soon you can aim your smart-phone at a piece of beef and have an app display the meat’s entire history, such as where it was raised, what it was fed, and when and where it was processed.

A new electronic etching procedure developed by Pricewaterhouse Coopers creates an invisible, edible barcode made of non-toxic silicon dioxide. At first, tags will be embedded in the beef’s primary packaging only, but eventually even individual steaks could be tagged.

The technology will be launched first in Australia and China in the upcoming year. Such measures will help protect branded names for beef as well as keep food supplies safer for consumers, using the new technology to avoid repeats of multiple past food fraud incidents.

Yes, but in this case a zombie is a product whose sales have not grown over the last three years. Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey requests “zombie reviews” for each market using a guide that was developed for these reviews.

Already this year, Coca-Cola’s Middle East and North Africa business units have identified over 125 zombies that have been or will be removed by the end of the year.

Guidance: As the article states, removing zombies reduces complexity. Resources that went to zombies could be diverted to “star” products or to introducing new products. These resources cross the entire organization from the marketing department through the supply chain. This reduction of complexity make it easier to efficiently run the entire supply chain. Ideally, this will put the resources on the products that will produce the most revenues for the organization.

Three Square Market, which implanted 100 employees with microchips last year to open doors, log into computers, or buy snacks from vending machines, is working on a new microchip with GPS tracking capability and voice activation. This chip can also monitor vital signs and in the future, applications could involve storing medical records for use in emergency situations.

The microchip is the size of a grain of rice and is implanted in the hand between the thumb and forefinger. Some are concerned with privacy issues, but some are embracing the technology, including about 4,000 users in Sweden who can ride trains without tickets or turn on lights in their apartments.

How far this will go is yet to be seen, but many believe the technology will become widespread.